“Thanks.” It was the same brunette she’d walked with the day before. There couldn’t be two girls with Africa plastered down their necks. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she frowned as though her head was sore.
“Hey, I remember you from yesterday. I’m Ash.” She stuck out a hand and grinned, which quickly turned to a grimace as her forehead creased.
“Evazee. Are you OK?”
“I just have this headache. It won’t go away, and I keep hearing a voice in my head, talking to me. I don’t really mind. It’s just that it makes the pain so much worse. Wait.” She turned to Evazee with her eyes wide. “I’m not crazy. I’m really not. It’s just a voice. It’s not real. Right?”
Evazee opened her mouth to answer but nothing came out. Change the subject. “Um, I’m sorry about your headache. Do you know where we’re going?”
Ash shrugged. She folded into herself. “Sorting, I think.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, don’t stress. It’s all to help us with our futures. There are some nice people up ahead, and they help you figure out where you fit in life. That’s what the voice said any—” She shut her mouth and sighed so hard her shoulders drooped.
Evazee slowed. “Wait, what if I don’t need help? What if I know exactly what I want to do?”
Ash frowned, “That’s weird. How could you know that?” She blinked and seemed to dismiss it. “I dunno. Tell them and let them figure it out. Look. We’re close to the front now.”
Booths were set up all across the tunnel. Behind the booths, Evazee counted four different tunnel openings branching off. Only four people were ahead of them in line. The guys manning the booths wore no shirts, baggy pants with the crotch hanging between their knees, and barefoot running shoes that were moulded around each toe.
Evazee bumped Ash and pointed. “I don’t think we should ask these guys for fashion tips.”
Ash grinned. “But darling, I’ve always wanted those pants.”
“It’s the shoes that do it for me.” Evazee shook her head with a snort. She focussed on the girl at the front of the queue. She stepped up to the booth. One of the guys had a scanner pressed to her forehead. His lips moved as he silently read whatever was scrolling up the screen. The other man fiddled with something that looked like a gun. Evazee’s heart went cold. The two men conferred briefly. The one with the gun nodded and toyed with the settings.
Without any fuss, the second man held the gun to the girl’s arm and pulled the trigger. Evazee expected her to fall down or bleed, but the girl did neither. She passed through the booth, the man escorted her to the second corridor and she disappeared.
Blood rushed past Evazee’s eardrums. The line moved quickly and it was her turn next. Ash clasped her hands together and squeezed them.
“Are you nervous?”
Ash shook her head. “No. Maybe? A little.” She slumped. “OK, maybe a lot.”
The man waved Evazee over. On impulse, she grabbed Ash and whispered, “I hear the voice in my head.”
Ash’s face lit up. “Are you kidding me?”
The man pulled Evazee forward, and her window for making conversation closed.
~*~
The music washed over Kai, and he fought the overwhelming sense of loss threatening to swallow him up. He remembered being with Tau and feeling as if his insides had been replaced with sunshine. There wasn’t a hint of sunshine in any of these people, not if their faces were anything to judge by.
The lady in the middle of the stage dropped her arms and the music cut off. The three women stepped back as a tall gentleman took to the stage from the wings. His face seemed familiar, though Kai couldn’t place him.
Silence fell over the room.
“Welcome Seekers.” The man spoke in a formal tone. “You are all here for one purpose, and one purpose alone. To become acceptable to the One. The only One. I am here to help you in your quest.” The man paused and his eyes swept across the crowd, piercing and intense. He cleared his throat. “Before you can approach Tau, you have to lose yourself. Lose your individual ways and thoughts. Outgrow the need for things to be all about you. Embrace the emptiness that remains when all that is you is burnt up, cast off and destroyed. There is no room in the heart of Tau for those who aren’t willing to die. Do you want to be acceptable? Sacrifice. Do you want Tau to love you? You’ve got to earn it. Nothing comes for free.”
His voice droned on and anger burned hot in Kai’s chest. This man claimed to know Tau, but he was twisting everything that Kai knew to be true. In between nuggets of truth, most of what this man said didn’t fit Kai’s experience of Tau in the slightest.
The man paused and dramatically stared into space. “Tau is here, and he is ready to perform a miracle so that you will all believe. Who needs a miracle?”
The crowd went wild. The preacher singled out a young girl who’d been carried in on her friend’s back. She was passed forward from hand to hand and deposited onto the stage. Her legs flopped uselessly and she had to lean back on her hands to look up at the preacher, who paid no attention to her. He worked the crowd, pacing from one side of the stage to the other. “Crank up your faith people. You can’t expect to see a miracle if you haven’t earned it.”
Finally, with the crowd buzz at an all-time high, he stopped in front of the girl. Her eyes were stretched wide, and her breath came too fast. The preacher plastered a hand to her head and yelled words at such speed that the words made no sense. Then he got down with his face in hers and shouted, “Get up! Walk!”
He reached down, took her hand, and helped her to her feet. The girl’s wobbly legs steadied. With the preacher still holding her hands, she managed to take a step. The crowd went ballistic. A girl in the front row shrieked and fainted. Some congregants bounced up and down, laughing and screaming. Others doubled over, cheeks wet with tears. The preacher let go of both her hands and stepped back. The girl took a few slow steps. Then she increased her speed and began to run.
~*~
A hooded, dark figure melted out from the shadows of an overhanging rock and slipped alongside her. Evazee ignored the person, instead concentrating on not face-planting. The floor was pitted and uneven, causing many to stumble as they followed the drums. Evazee’s shoulder stung, and she felt sick to her stomach.
The reading and shooting had been quick. After that, they’d guided her to the left-most tunnel. The light in this tunnel throbbed in a blinding shade of milky white, lit by a roof covered in crystals.
“Here, put these in your ears.”
Evazee tried to brush past, but the man in the hood sidestepped to block her. Evazee cast a quick glance around, they were drawing some suspicious looks. “Excuse me, please.”
“Stop being stubborn and put these in your ears.” He threw back the hood and Evazee’s breath caught.
“Elden? What are you doing?” She checked behind to see if they were being watched.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Getting you out of here. Put these in before the next round of drum beats.”
Evazee dubiously eyed the makeshift earplugs. They seemed to be made of chewed-up bark. “I’m not leaving without Peta.”
“We found her. Zulu is extracting her as we speak. Earplugs now, please.”
Evazee reached for them as another beat shuddered through her from the ground. One dropped, but before it could hit the floor, Elden grabbed and shoved it in her ear. Evazee cringed at the damp coldness but held out her hand for the other.
With her ears blocked, the drumbeats still rumbled through her feet, but she had no desire to follow blindly anymore. There was something far more effective about these plugs than simply using her fingers.
Elden took her hand in his, and she allowed him to drag her along. They stayed with the group, careful to blend in. Elden squinted down each passage they passed. The third opening seemed to be what he’d been looking for. It was low and the walls were rough, dotted with growing clumps of purple mushrooms.
E
vazee doubled herself over, following Elden’s example. Just when she thought her back might never manage to straighten up again, they reached the hole that led upwards. He boosted her from below, and she scrambled for handholds in the rough rock.
A many-legged creature crawled over her fingers, and she bit her tongue to stop herself screaming. Fresh air washed over her face as they moved higher. With each swallow, the chaos in her mind resolved. She drank it in, longing to think straight again.
Zulu waited at the top to haul her out. His muscles bulged under the strain of her weight, but after one pull, she lay on her back next to the hole, breathing hard.
She fingered the chewed-up wads poking out of her ears. “Can I take these out now?”
20
“Where is she? Where is Peta?” Evazee stared wide-eyed from Elden to Zulu and back. “You said you would get her out.” She turned on Elden. “You said he was getting her out. You can’t leave her there.”
Zulu shook his head. “Small one is in deep. I couldn’t get to her.”
“I’m going back.” Evazee spun around, ready to march off into the darkness and slide down the tunnel they’d just sweated to climb from.
Elden held on to her shoulders. She struggled against his grip but didn’t move an inch.
“Please hear us out.”
Spots of colour stained Evazee’s cheeks. “No! Let me go! What is wrong with you both? You can’t leave her there. She’s too small.”
“Listen. She’s been in Affinity training for months already. She’s in no more danger than what she’s been in all this time. She’s not a threat to them.”
An angry tear ran down Evazee’s cheeks. “None of that matters. Don’t you get it? She’s going to think I deserted her. That I betrayed her. Apart from that, I don’t know how much time she has left.”
Elden drew back. “What are you talking about? Is she sick?”
Evazee scrubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. “Do you remember the day she fell during training? When she broke her ankle?” Evazee didn’t wait for Elden to nod. “We watched Shasta heal her. You were right there with me.”
“It was amazing to watch.”
“Amazing is not the word I’d choose. We also watched him kill and resurrect a LightSucker. Do you remember what happened after he’d done that?”
Elden sighed.
“You do remember. A few minutes later, the LightSucker flew around the corner and died at our feet. It seems to me that Shasta’s healings are a sham. A temporary party trick to impress the gullible. So forgive me if I’m not overly excited at the prospect of leaving her in his care.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m sorry.”
Evazee shrugged and collapsed at the base of a tree, all her strength sapped. “I can’t leave her there. She ‘s fragile beyond what you can imagine.”
“Small one is tougher than you think.” Zulu towered over her and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving her.”
Elden shook his head. “But what about the drums. You can’t resist them. If you go back, you risk getting sucked into that whole system all over again. And we just got you out. It would be madness.”
“You better believe I’m mad.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. C’mon. Don’t be stubborn.”
Evazee crawled on all fours and found the two chewed-up wads of bark. She sat in the dirt and stuffed them back into her ears. Once they were in deep enough to stay put, she thumbs-upped the two guys. “No drums can bother me now. Let’s go.”
Elden’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear a word.
“What?” She fiddled one out of her ear.
“I said you’re shouting.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She shoved the earplug back in and grinned, pushed herself to her feet, and waved the boys back to where they’d just come from.
For a small girl, Evazee was stubborn enough to make kings weep. Zulu led them to the same opening they’d rescued her out of. Little more than a semi-circular framed hole, their make-shift entrance was designed to let air in and out of the tunnels below, most certainly not people. Elden scrambled through first and stood at the bottom with his arms wide. Evazee scraped her shoulder on the way through. She bit back a yelp. Zulu followed, slipping smoothly through the hole as if he were half Evazee’s size.
“I’ll go this way.” Zulu set off and blended into the shadows so well that in seconds it appeared that he’d vanished.
Evazee clucked her tongue. “How did he not get stuck?”
“He’s a strange one.” Elden blinked, the whites of his eyes flashing. “Let’s go quickly now.”
Evazee turned to face the gloomy underground, and Elden took her hand. They followed the passage until it opened into a wide, whale-rib hall similar to the one they gathered in before the sorting. She’d deliberately steered them in the opposite direction from the booths.
Feeling soiled, she rubbed her shoulder. Maybe she wouldn’t tell him about the marking just yet. She pulled Elden down so that her mouth met his ear. “I don’t know where to start. These tunnels go on forever.”
“She can’t be too far. Come on.”
They casually walked through the open space, blending with the rest of the crowd that seemed to be in no hurry at all. Between the subdued lighting and their efforts at not obviously staring, it was hard to tell how big the hall actually was.
Evazee pulled Elden closer to whisper in his ear. “Nobody is doing anything. They’re all just milling around. Isn’t that odd?”
Elden squinted into the darkness ahead. “There’s something going down up ahead. Let’s go check it out.” He took her hand, and they moved away from the open space in the centre, blending into the shadows along the edges. Her fingers tingled between his. It was distracting. She was tempted to pull her hand away, but a thread of self-preservation convinced her to just go with it.
They picked their way between the people, scanning the faces for their own little silvery-blonde girl. Elden pulled Evazee in behind a bone. “Careful. These guys look like officials.”
The milling mass of people were being divided into groups. Officials moved between the crowd with scanners.
“We can’t let them find us. I don’t know how we’re going to do this.”
Zulu appeared next to them with Peta clinging to his neck. “Let’s go.”
“How did you...”
“Shh. No time, move. Scanners coming.”
~*~
Above ground, they found a quiet spot to settle.
Evazee knelt next to Peta with one hand on her forehead. “She’s burning up.”
Elden knelt near Peta’s scorched legs. “These wounds have turned nasty. I’m not surprised.”
They sheltered in between the roots of an enormous tree, which towered and stretched over them with its generous leaves. Zulu had mushroom light going within seconds of their decision to rest. Evazee hated the purple glow, but she hated the dark even more.
Peta patted Evazee’s hand, pulling her close enough to hear a whisper. Her throat was raw and raspy. “Thirsty.” The small girl’s eyes were bloodshot and tinged purple.
Zulu prodded Evazee with a bony finger. “You have blue water for her legs.”
“I do! How could I forget?” Evazee unstrapped the water bottle from around her body.
Zulu grinned at her. “A lot has happened since we took that water.”
Evazee unscrewed the lid and bent down to pour some on Peta’s legs. Peta grabbed her ankle, pointing weakly toward the bottle. “Thirsty.”
“Guys, what do we do? Is it safe to drink this water?”
Zulu shook his head. “Too potent. It might kill her.”
Elden shrugged. “The thing is, without water she’ll die anyway. This is the only water we have. I say we try it.”
Evazee held the bottle to Peta’s lips with trembling hands. Just a drop. Peta reached up and tipped the bottle toward her mouth with a forcefuln
ess that surprised Evazee. Before Evazee could wrestle the bottle out of her grip, Peta drank deeply down to the last drop. She lay back with a satisfied sigh. Her breathing slowed and settled.
“Oh my word. Come and look at this.” Elden’s voice was low and normal, but his eyes stretched as wide as an ocean of disbelief.
The damaged skin all down the front of Peta’s legs re-attached itself—stringy skin tentacles crossing the raw patches and knitting them back together. Peta slipped into peaceful sleep for the first time since her legs had been burned.
Zulu sat back on his haunches, staring at Peta as if she’d fallen from the sky in a pea pod. “What now?”
Elden stood with his hands on his hips. “Now we wait. While we wait, we can plan.”
“We need to find the others, though I don’t know where to start. I’m not keen on going back to the graveyard. Not at all.” Evazee grimaced.
“They’ve moved on from there anyway. Zulu, what would you suggest? How do we track our friends?”
Zulu rubbed his chin and held up a finger. Without a word, he withdrew a few paces into the forest.
Elden pointed at the empty space where Zulu used to be. “And now?”
“Who knows? He’ll be back. We can’t really do anything while this one is out anyway.”
Elden crossed the bare ground between his root and hers. He waited for her nod before sitting. “What happened back there? Why did you follow the drums?”
Evazee stared at nothing, avoiding his eyes. “They were compelling. I followed. Not much more to tell really.” She shivered at the thought of Shasta, his voice in her head. Unspoken things hung in the air between them. “You know, I don’t really want to talk about this place.”
Elden settled back onto the trunk with his hands tucked behind his head. He stretched out his legs, crossed his feet at the ankles, and watched her between half-mast lids. “OK. What’s better, sunrise or sunset?”
“That’s a daft question.”
“Humour me.” His eyes twinkled and a lazy smile pulled at his lips.
“Fine. Rise.”
“Ah yes, the eternal optimist. Just as I thought. You look for new possibilities, the whole brand-new-day thing.”
Resonance Page 15